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The not-really steampunk story is finally starting to go somewhere - at least the main characters have names now (John Button and his sister Lucinda).
“There’s a curious book,” Button said to himself. It was indeed a curious book. The cover was not well-printed - the figures loosely hand-coloured in a rough, almost childish style; yet there was an energy to the composition that had caught his eye, and held it. Printed in fanciful letters was the title The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. A religious tract, then, illustrated and run off by the author for the spiritual edification of his friends, family, and anyone else who could be persuaded to take a copy. The second-hand book dealers were infested with’em, and he wondered that this one had made it onto the shelf at all.
The naked running figures on the front were a little unusual, though. He opened it and read a page at random, paused and worked his way again through the twisted lettering to be sure he had understood it correctly the first time, and then read on through the next page; and the one after that.
A quarter-hour later Button brought the book to the front of the shop.
“Is the author of this yet living?” The proprietor craned forward to peer at the sprawling, illuminated fly-leaf.
“Oh, that one. No idea. If he is, he’s surely in a madhouse by now. Suppose I shouldn’t have it out at all; you’re only the latest customer to complain.”
“I’m not complaining. How’d you come by it?”
Upon returning home, Button had slipped the tract under his pillow. When the faint sounds of Lucinda readying herself for sleep no longer rustled through the dividing wall (save the occasional cough) he fumbled along the bedside table for the box of safety matches, struck one, glanced at the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of candle and decided he could afford to waste a quarter-inch of it on Mr. Blake. He read laboriously, from the first page to the middle of the thin volume, occasionally stopping and re-reading one of the more grotesquely cryptic sentences. Whatever else Blake was or had been, he certainly wasn’t or hadn’t been a man whose drift was easily apparent. With that thought, Button decided he’d had enough for the night. He blew out the candle, curled up in his blankets, and shut his aching eyes, to dream of brazen monsters raising their heads above the cages of red brick that prisoned them.
Dawn came like a huge blood-red rose. Button dressed and started the porridge -- Lucinda had already lit the stove. Her cough continued quiet and worrisome and unimproved by the soot she was busily scrubbing off their front step and which he knew would have settled afresh by evening. He wished their parents *had* let her become a missionary like she’d wanted -- a warm clime with no factories, that would’ve been a better life for her. Better for her lungs, anyway.
“There’s a curious book,” Button said to himself. It was indeed a curious book. The cover was not well-printed - the figures loosely hand-coloured in a rough, almost childish style; yet there was an energy to the composition that had caught his eye, and held it. Printed in fanciful letters was the title The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. A religious tract, then, illustrated and run off by the author for the spiritual edification of his friends, family, and anyone else who could be persuaded to take a copy. The second-hand book dealers were infested with’em, and he wondered that this one had made it onto the shelf at all.
The naked running figures on the front were a little unusual, though. He opened it and read a page at random, paused and worked his way again through the twisted lettering to be sure he had understood it correctly the first time, and then read on through the next page; and the one after that.
A quarter-hour later Button brought the book to the front of the shop.
“Is the author of this yet living?” The proprietor craned forward to peer at the sprawling, illuminated fly-leaf.
“Oh, that one. No idea. If he is, he’s surely in a madhouse by now. Suppose I shouldn’t have it out at all; you’re only the latest customer to complain.”
“I’m not complaining. How’d you come by it?”
Upon returning home, Button had slipped the tract under his pillow. When the faint sounds of Lucinda readying herself for sleep no longer rustled through the dividing wall (save the occasional cough) he fumbled along the bedside table for the box of safety matches, struck one, glanced at the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of candle and decided he could afford to waste a quarter-inch of it on Mr. Blake. He read laboriously, from the first page to the middle of the thin volume, occasionally stopping and re-reading one of the more grotesquely cryptic sentences. Whatever else Blake was or had been, he certainly wasn’t or hadn’t been a man whose drift was easily apparent. With that thought, Button decided he’d had enough for the night. He blew out the candle, curled up in his blankets, and shut his aching eyes, to dream of brazen monsters raising their heads above the cages of red brick that prisoned them.
Dawn came like a huge blood-red rose. Button dressed and started the porridge -- Lucinda had already lit the stove. Her cough continued quiet and worrisome and unimproved by the soot she was busily scrubbing off their front step and which he knew would have settled afresh by evening. He wished their parents *had* let her become a missionary like she’d wanted -- a warm clime with no factories, that would’ve been a better life for her. Better for her lungs, anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 02:51 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 10:24 am (UTC)From:Also that bookshop should probably be a bookstall, or possibly a circulating library (though Blake might have been too weird for a circulating library in 1850 - again, more research!)
I've found a possible setting:
Date: 2011-05-19 12:56 am (UTC)From: